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National Catholic Reporter, Oct 27, 1995

Was anyone not listening when Louis Farrakhan spoke in Washington last Monday? Would inattention be possible, given that the message he delivered spoke so deeply to our fears, our helplessness, our, yearnings?

The 2.2 million households who, according to Cable News Network's count, tuned in to Farrakhan's long speech - more households than tuned into the pope's address to the United Nations or to any other speech this year - signify the hope we want to feel for our nation's cities and youth.

We want to imagine an end to racism, grinding poverty, festering rage, drugs, abuse of women, crime and death by guns. Yet, increasingly, we mistrust our programs and our ability to develop better ones. As a nation, we lack the will to focus our energy and creativity on these problems. We recognize that in the current political climate, solutions are unlikely to emerge.

To some of us, it seemed the Million Man March was at the very least the spark that could ignite a transformative f ire. What relief and joy we would feel if the momentum for change began to build from within neighborhoods stymied by fear and pain and merged with generous support from without.

Among early hopeful signs: President Clinton gave a major address on race relations at the University of Texas at Austin and six members of the House called for a bipartisan commission to study race relations in the nation and recommend measures to improve them.

Political focus on problem-solving rather than on program-cutting and negative images of welfare recipients would be a welcome shift.

Unfortunately, even if the message were received as wholesome, the messenger is, to put it mildly, problematic. Granted, this appeared to be a kinder gentler Farrakhan, one who challenged his listeners rather than denigrating Jews, Catholics, Asians, gays, and others, as he has too often in the past.

"Black man, you don't have to bash white people," Louis Farrakhan declared. "All we got to do is go back home and turn our communities into productive places." Those of us troubled by all the recent talk of racial divisions found comfort in such words, as battered women and other victims of physical abuse surely did when members of his audience pledged to set aside violence in all forms.

But even as Farrakhan asked black men to atone for wrongs they have inflicted - a message that might be taken to heart by all the human race - he offered no atonement for his own divisive rhetoric of the all too recent past.

The optimistic among us hope that Farrakhan's rally and its freeing message will ultimately transcend the messenger and take on a healing life of its own.

The Nation of Islam leader suggested as much when he told the crowd, "You have gathered here at the call of God, for it is only the call of almighty God ... that could generate this kind of outpouring. God called us here to this place at this time for a very specific reason."

Cynics, or simply realists, worry that the "specific reason" is that Farrakhan has assumed the platform he has long sought and will use it to damaging ends. If his rhetoric has been tempered, it is probably a ploy to veil his true separatist agenda, they warn.

We need to ask to what extent is it possible, really, or even wise, when a leader emerges, to separate the person from the words.

Again, Farrakhan himself signaled caution when he spoke: "And although the call was made through me, many have tried to distance the beauty of this idea from the person through whom the idea and the call was made. ... Brothers and sisters, there is no human being through whom God brings an idea that history doesn't marry the idea with that human being, no matter what defect was in that human being's character."

Cynics and optimists may be able to agree at least on this: The event was a historic moment, as Farrakhan phrased it, a "pregnant" one.

In keeping with that metaphor, we will wait and pray that as Farrakhan's audience grows, he will rise to the best of his own message and set aside his separatist agenda in the interest of oneness. Perhaps too, many of us will become midwives to a new birth of creative energy aimed at interracial harmony and trust.

Easy optimism could block our view of the long, hard road to change - and the possibility that Farrakhan may use his leadership to damaging ends.

Cynicism, heard from blacks as well as whites, could allow the spark to die. We would be wrong to allow our fear of Farrakhan to block our view of possibilities or to excuse us from doing what we can.